By Perez Brisibe

In an institution that is built on seniority, ranking in the Nigerian Senate is very valuable. It confers huge benefits including more powers within party caucuses, front row seats in the Senate chamber and better office space.

Omo-Agege

But more importantly, ranking is used in the selection of candidates for leadership of the Senate and appointments of committee chairmanship.

It is for this reason that constituents are often inclined to re-elect their representatives rather than sending “greenhorns” to represent them at the legislative arm of government.

Despite these obvious benefits of seniority, Delta Central has never returned a senator.

Senators from the district who did one term each are  Chief Fred Brume, who served in the 4th National Assembly, Olorogun Felix Ibru who was  in the 5th  Assembly, Adego Eferakeya in the 6th Assembly and the late Olorogun Pius Ewherido in the 7th Assembly.

Though  Ewherido increased the bench mark for representation for the people, his agenda and aspirations for the people were  cut short by death leading to  a by-election which produced Olorogun Emmanuel Aguariawvodo to finish his term in office.

The failure of Aguariawvodo to return saw the emergence of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege in the 8th Assembly following the sack  of Chief Ighoyota Amori  by the Court of Appeal, 7months into the assembly. This trend has given rise to the cliché that, no Senator representing the district is re-elected.

Delta Central, with 8 local government areas, plays host to the Urhobo people  with a total of 819, 118 registered voters according to the register of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, used for the 2013 by-election.

Unfortunately, the people of the district have not been so lucky on their representation  in the Senate following the wanton changing of senators with the beginning of every  Assembly hence sending “greenhorns” into the red chambre.

The cost has been huge. No Urhobo man has assumed a leadership position in the Senate. Only Brume, who was elected to the Senate in 1999 when all members of the hallowed chamber were  first timers, was able to secure the chairmanship of a committee.

Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, despite already being a super star in the Senate, is only the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Land Transport. This is obviously not good enough for the fifth largest ethnic group in Nigeria. And 2019 provides the Urhobo people a great opportunity to correct the situation themselves.

Omo-Agege will  soon declare his interest  in second term to represent Delta Central and, if he wins, he’ll become a senior senator and that matters greatly for his constituency, the Urhobo people. While already a very popular senator in the APC and, at a time, one of only two APC senators from South South, Omo-Agege could not make a chairmanship or leadership spot in the Senate.

But all that would change should the people of Delta Central re-elect him.

Omo-Agege would go back to the Senate as one of the prominent progressives, able to compete for a leadership position or secure the chairmanship of a very powerful committee.

He would have a very good chance to get  a chairmanship position and a leadership position, which a new senator won’t have. And he won’t be a backbencher.

This is a decision before the people of Delta Central but Omo-Agege  knows that to ensure his return, he  must be above board in the representation of his constituents.

To buttress this point, the lawmaker, while speaking to newsmen at the Osubi airport where a large number of his constituents came out to welcome him after being away for three months at Abuja championing their cause, said: “They sent me to the National Assembly to represent them; in sending me there, they have realized that I was one out of a total of 109.”

It is in the light of this that a chieftain of the APC, Chief Great Ovadje Ogboru, who had accompanied  Omo-Agege from Abuja to the warm embrace of his constituents, noted that  Urhobos are proud of the lawmaker, saying, “You can see that from the crowd that has turned out to welcome him.”

• Brisibe is based in Warri